Month: November 2015

Since I had Veteran’s Day off from work but Diane still had to go to work and school, I contacted Marty over the weekend to see if he was up for some hiking. He was, so we planned to stay close to home and explore the lower reaches of Bangs Canyon just outside of Grand Junction this morning. After a night of rain and snow we knew it was going to be a wet hike. I met Marty at the trailhead just outside of Whitewater along East Creek at the mouth of Unaweep Canyon about an hour after sunrise.

On Sunday Diane and I stayed close to home and did a little backcountry hiking in the Colorado National Monument. This time we were in search of a little-known set of natural bridges located at the head of a short unnamed side canyon that have no official name, but are collectively known as the Triple Bridges. In recent years a fourth opening has appeared that is becoming the start of a fourth natural bridge (you can see the tiny hole in the photo above that is below the set of two bridges), however at this point I would consider that opening so insignificant that I don’t feel there is currently a need to rename these arches to the ‘Quadruple Bridges’ – but maybe one day!

On Saturday morning Diane and I left home early and drove west into Utah to go hiking in the desert. Our destination was Crack Canyon in the San Rafael Reef which is not too far away from the much more popular Little Wild Horse Canyon and Goblin Valley State Park. After getting off the highway and following Temple Mountain Road through the reef, we took the Behind the Reef Road to Crack Canyon and drove down the wash to the Wilderness Study Area boundary. We parked here and started hiking down the canyon. It was a beautiful canyon with interesting tafoni everywhere and a few short sections of narrows. There was nice reflected light bouncing off the canyon walls so I took my time taking plenty of photos along the way. We hiked through the reef until we reached the intersection with the Chute Canyon Trail where we turned around and returned the way we had come. We didn’t see anyone else all afternoon until we were on our way back to the trailhead, and even then we only ran into a family of four and another solo hiker. The high temperature was probably in the low 50’s and it turned out to be a great day for hiking in the canyon!

After work this evening I went on a short hike into the East Entrance of Monument Canyon (Lower Monument Canyon) in the Colorado National Monument to take a few photos just before and after the sunset. Here are a couple of photos from the short hike.

It’s been pretty rainy and wet here in the Grand Valley for the past day or two, but this afternoon the storms finally started to clear out of the area and I decided to drive up to the Colorado National Monument after work to take a few photos. I ended up just going to the Devil’s Kitchen in No Thoroughfare Canyon and hanging around there until shortly after sunset. Here are a few photos from the evening.